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Downsides of Army Aviation?


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Unless Army Aviation makes a lot of changes you're going to spend most of your time doing stuff unrelated to flying. Warrant Officers run most of the administrative side of a unit. It's a full time job. I spent lots of 12+ hour days doing nothing but my additional duties or helping other people with theirs.

 

Could you provide an example of some additional duties for warrant officer pilots?

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Could you provide an example of some additional duties for warrant officer pilots?

Property book officer

arms room officer

cbrn officer

hazmat officer

hazcom officer

voter assistance officer

key control officer

physical security officer

information security officer

casualty assistance officer

casualty notification officer

nvg custodian

laser/radiation officer

unit movement officer

equal opportunity officer

sharp officer

publications officer

flight ops oic

comsec officer

 

Those are just off the top of my head, I’m sure I missed plenty.

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Yep totally am, because all these side gigs keep me from being proficient and as good at my job as i feel I can be. The sharp memos I write wont get me killed but there is more importance placed on it than me learning my profession tells me that the focus in this particular organization is wrong. 3 fatalities so far of people whom I met/recognized during my time at flight school and Ive only been out a little over a year. For the ones that were pilot error it makes me sad to think that they put that kind of focus on things that dont make us better at the job and if they had would some of those crashed been avoidable? I'm heading for the door the first opportunity I can. Besides the Army is full of rapists and drug addicts about to off themselves at any given moment according to my training schedule, who'd wanna stay in an organization like that! I dont know if the other branches flying positions have more or less issues, but I know for a fact the civilian world doesnt.

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That's pretty crazy how little flight time that is. I shudder to what the average flight time of a commissioned officer is since they fly less than warrants. How long was your duty day in comparison to those flight hours? I take it that some time must have been devoted to mission planning/debrief, but aside from that was the rest of the time filled with collateral duties?

 

I was commissioned on AD for 10 years and didn't see the inside of a cockpit for 6 years and 6 months straight. I got out with around 800 hours; I have twice that after 5 years as a part-time warrant officer in the guard. FYSA, we have flight school slots we can't fill because we don't have qualified candidates.

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Seriously, you guys are complaining about keeping track of NVGs, keepingba fridge stocked, and the whereabouts of keys?

 

You guys should be thankful to not be flying as an Officer in the other branches.

Ill gladly take those lol. But when I am doing additional duties that literally have their own MOS it can get tiring. I see it as paying my dues and hoping to be in good enough graces to get the track I want. However, when you have a pilot trying to figure out the intracasies of g-army and how to ship a humvee across the world because of a directive...you begin to wonder what happened

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I was commissioned on AD for 10 years and didn't see the inside of a cockpit for 6 years and 6 months straight. I got out with around 800 hours; I have twice that after 5 years as a part-time warrant officer in the guard. FYSA, we have flight school slots we can't fill because we don't have qualified candidates.

 

I've heard similar from quite a few other Guard aviators. Seems to be military aviation's best kept secret.

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I was commissioned on AD for 10 years and didn't see the inside of a cockpit for 6 years and 6 months straight. I got out with around 800 hours; I have twice that after 5 years as a part-time warrant officer in the guard. FYSA, we have flight school slots we can't fill because we don't have qualified candidates.

 

Do you have to be an AD Warrant Officer pilot first? Or can you go to WOFT under a National Guard contract?

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You can go straight guard WOFT. It's up to the individual state in practice how they want to do it. Some states will take people right off the street, others will take them from within the guard, others will look at everything case by case. For example I was recently accepted in my State which typically would only select from within the national guard. I had a completed packet and was prior service so they made an exception.

 

Mike

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Seriously, you guys are complaining about keeping track of NVGs, keepingba fridge stocked, and the whereabouts of keys?

 

You guys should be thankful to not be flying as an Officer in the other branches.

 

I didn't see anyone complaining about that. I did see them on a list of potential additional duties, though none of those examples are time consuming and are not considered "big" additional duties. And yes, most of us are glad to not be Officers in other branches.

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Lindsey's packet (http://helicopterforum.verticalreference.com/topic/13468-warrant-officer-flight-training/) has a section where she talks about collateral duties and some of the daily routine for active duty. I'm sure it still mostly applies even though its from a few years ago.

 

I watched some 160th guys do some training on the back of my ship (I'm deployed with the Navy right now) and I was able to talk to two of the pilots real quick. FWIW, they both said flying was as fun as it looks and totally worth it hahaha

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I've never met anyone who's said "flying is meh." I have met many people who said the extra duties drove them out, though I'm thinking of two Marine aviators in particular who said they flew a desk more than anything.

 

Mike

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Do any of you know if it is possible to get a guaranteed aviation contract through OCS, prior to attending? I was accepted to WOFT, but since my basic date isn't for so long I have started to explore the idea of OCS. My recruiter doesn't seem to think so, but he has been wrong on a lot of questions I have asked him in the past.

 

I have a 4 year degree and meet all of the requirements to be an officer, so I am starting to think OCS would be a better fit for me. That being said, I am about to finish my PPL so it would be foolish of me to go to OCS without a guaranteed flight school slot.

 

I am also 22 years old, which from what I understand is traditionally the age people become 2lts. Sorry if some (or all) of this sounds naive, but I literally know 2 people in the entire military - both of whom are Marines. I understand that a lot of WOs have 4 year degrees as well, but I want to make sure that I am making the best decision for a career that will, at the very least, last about 8-9 years.

 

Thanks

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I got my basic date in March. I am not supposed to ship out until November 13th or 19th...cant remember the exact date. WOCS class begins 02/22/19.

 

I believe someone else on the March board received the same BCT and WOCS dates. No idea why its a 6 month wait, but hopefully you will have better luck.

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niner 5

 

Active duty Army OCS will NOT guarantee branching Aviation even though you passed the Sift and flight physical UNLESS you were a previous Warrant Officer aviator. All the other military services will guarantee a commission officer (Ens/2Lt) pilot slot as you well know.

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Do any of you know if it is possible to get a guaranteed aviation contract through OCS, prior to attending? I was accepted to WOFT, but since my basic date isn't for so long I have started to explore the idea of OCS. My recruiter doesn't seem to think so, but he has been wrong on a lot of questions I have asked him in the past.

 

I have a 4 year degree and meet all of the requirements to be an officer, so I am starting to think OCS would be a better fit for me. That being said, I am about to finish my PPL so it would be foolish of me to go to OCS without a guaranteed flight school slot.

 

I am also 22 years old, which from what I understand is traditionally the age people become 2lts. Sorry if some (or all) of this sounds naive, but I literally know 2 people in the entire military - both of whom are Marines. I understand that a lot of WOs have 4 year degrees as well, but I want to make sure that I am making the best decision for a career that will, at the very least, last about 8-9 years.

 

Thanks

If you go straight to OCS there is no guarantee for any branch, to my knowledge. West Point and ROTC are the primary feeders for aviation officers. Heres what I tell everyone that wants aviation out of OCS. Between Rucker, my unit, and my time OCONUS, I have met ZERO O-grades who came from OCS. Seriously, its that rare.

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OCS is there to fulfill the commissioning requirement (gap) that USMA and ROTC cannot fill. Hence why its commissioning numbers flux more than the other two (easier to expand and contract it as needed).

 

Aviation branch requirements are easily filled by the other two for the vast, vast majority during the branch fill process (convoluted if you ever get briefed on it, but HR gurus definitely have a statistical process). The last three previous posters' responses have it.

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AD Army aviation is an absolute morale killer, especially in the 25th. 10% of the job is flying. The rest is extra duties, admin, ruck marches, pt everyday, online training and whatever else higher has a hard on that doesn't already fit into a 12 hour work day.

 

All my guard friends are having a blast. I think I made the wrong decision.

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So as a pilot they make you come in and do group PT everyday? I get a motivational thing now and again, but that's dumb.

I think the online training is inescapable I'm still waiting on WOCS/IERW for the guard, but I still have a bunch of AKO stuff I'm supposed to be doing. No different than when I was in the USMC and we had metric f**k-tons of MarineNet classes to take. Don't rape people. Don't smoke bath salts. Make sure you can escape from terrorists in your hotel, etc.

 

Mike

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Do any of you know if it is possible to get a guaranteed aviation contract through OCS, prior to attending? I was accepted to WOFT, but since my basic date isn't for so long I have started to explore the idea of OCS. My recruiter doesn't seem to think so, but he has been wrong on a lot of questions I have asked him in the past.

 

I have a 4 year degree and meet all of the requirements to be an officer, so I am starting to think OCS would be a better fit for me. That being said, I am about to finish my PPL so it would be foolish of me to go to OCS without a guaranteed flight school slot.

 

I am also 22 years old, which from what I understand is traditionally the age people become 2lts. Sorry if some (or all) of this sounds naive, but I literally know 2 people in the entire military - both of whom are Marines. I understand that a lot of WOs have 4 year degrees as well, but I want to make sure that I am making the best decision for a career that will, at the very least, last about 8-9 years.

 

Thanks

I was able to guarantee my aviation slot through the guard because that process is very different. I went to the Aviation board which consisted of warrant candidates and officer candidates and was able to choose whether I wanted to go the warrant or commissioned route.

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